Israel and the Norway terror attacks

Thursday, July 28, 2011 |
Ryan Jones

When a mad nationalist Norwegian terrorist killed 93 of his countrymen (many of them children) in two separate terrorist attacks in Oslo last week, many set out to find a connection to Israel. No sense wasting such a tremendous opportunity to further smear the Jewish state and its supporters.

As with all such efforts to demonize Israel and especially its Christian friends, the detractors found what they were looking for, even if their conclusions required perverting reality.

The first connection came when it was revealed that the youth attending a summer camp hosted by Norway's ruling Labour Party on the island of Utoya had actually discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict two days prior to the attack.

During a sit-down with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Stoere, the youths had demanded that their government boycott the Jewish state. Photos of the event later featured in newspapers around the world showed several of the youths holding banners that read "Boycott Israel."

[Ed. Note - Many of these liberal voices calling for a boycott of Israel are the same that criticize Israel for practicing "collective punishment" against the Palestinians with its embargo against Gaza.]

After the killer, Anders Behring Breivik, was captured and questioned, the media almost gleefully reported that he is a right-wing Christian fundamentalist. What's more, he had reportedly authored a massive online manifesto that mentioned Israel in a positive light several hundred times.

For many political bloggers, and even for satellite network Al Jazeera, that was enough to accuse Israel's Mossad intelligence agency of being behind the Oslo massacre.

Jewish leaders in Europe said it is a new trend for right-wing nationalist groups, even neo-Nazis, to feign partnership with Israel in order to gain legitimacy. After all, both Israel and these groups find a common enemy in the same Islamic fundamentalism threatening the Jewish state and rearing its ugly head in the heart of Europe.

But the Jewish leaders say people like Breivik are no friends of their communities, or of Israel. They are only using Israel, and merely suspending their hatred of the Jews as they focus on a bigger enemy.

To complete the picture, many online media outlets described Breivik using the term "lunatic," which he certainly is, though that is a label that political correctness dictates we no longer use even for those with actual mental ailments.

The end result is that Breivik is imposed as a kind of poster child of conservative Christians supporters of Israel, whom these same media sources love nothing more than to paint as religious nutjobs.

And if Israel's supporters can be portrayed as being so dangerous and unhinged, then certainly the nation they so fervently back must be as well.

[Ed. Note - In yet another display of hypocrisy, these same blogs and online media sites that are so ready to attach Breivik's image to all Evangelical Christians who love Israel often balk at the suggestion that Muslim terrorists represent all conservative Muslims.]

Want more news from Israel?Click Here to sign up for our FREE daily email updates